Year in Review

What a year.  It has been crazy, fun and at times down right stressful.  We will start off with the brag sheet.  This year I entered in three online competitions.  There were two on the instructables site and one for Triton tools.  I got a participation shirt for the Triton tools competition.  My son also entered the Triton completion and won the Kid project division.  His won the work center with the table saw and router table modules.  Included is also a router.  We have not seen these prizes.  I think he was happy with the shirt.  The prizes are nice but the best two things about the project are:

1.       Working on a project that my son designed

2.       Having him read the letter from Triton and seeing the grin and excitement come across his face when he read, “I am delighted to be able to inform you that your entry “Toy Car Launcher” has won in the Kids category.”

Next big accomplishment is my plans are now for sale in a catalog.  Scroller now features some of my plans in there online and catalog.  It was interesting feat trying to get into a catalog and find different avenues to sell my plans.  Of the six that I tried this was the only company that was willing to take a risk.

I did four craft fairs this year.  That is three more than I originally planned.  Two of them I was invited to show at.  This is nothing special because there are at least two to six people passing out or getting vendor information at each craft fair.  Sold some items and learned a lot.  I had the honor to sell with a couple of ladies at work one does metal clay jewelry.  She does really nice work.  Please check out her shop here. The other is a talented stain glass artist. You can find her shop here.  I will do more but probably not four of them.  The group will still show together.  We really did have a fun time.

Looking back, I was surprised that I did not complete as many projects as I had thought.  I completed most of the projects that I wanted.  The first half of the year was making projects for competitions, the cradle, small car and the car launcher.  Then I did the high chair which was a skill builder.  First time hand cutting mortises.  Then I made the rocking chair just to complete the series.  The last few months was dedicated to craft fair items.

Favorite project this year was the cradle.  It is not like I made 6 of them.  I really like the look of resawing the blank and cutting out the design and then gluing it back together. My least favorite was the camping box.  I had envisioned greatness and it came out as an anchor.  It is heavy and awkward to move.  I am back to the drawing board on that one.

This year I actually purchased some tools.  This year was all hand tools.  I purchased a set of chisels, a shoulder plane and a low angle jack plane.  I also purchase a couple of sharpening stones to sharpen the tools.  It is amazing how nice it is to work with sharp tools.  There is some odd satisfaction when there are thin curled shavings on the floor after hand planing some boards.  I am not at all good at it but I am learning to set up a plane.  I will admit I was sore after planning a couple of boards.

On to next year’s goals.  My kids are growing up and starting to do more creating.  I am hoping to involve them more.  I am working on a kid building projects.  I have a couple of plans right now that I hope to start on in the first part of the year.  I also want to let others learn more about wood working.  I have offered to teach.  No takers yet.  I have several projects that I need to do and some of them are just maintenance items.

I just wanted to thank a couple of companies that have help out this year.  Uneeda Enterprises produces high quality sand paper.  They donated several sheets of sand paper to an orphanage our club was gathering tools and supplies for.  RSI also donated 1000 board feet of 6/4 poplar for making toys to the club. 

It is will be very difficult to top this year.